Basic Use

The following command starts a container with the Notebook server listening for HTTP connections on port 8888 without authentication configured.

docker run -d -p 8888:8888 jupyter/scipy-notebook

Notebook Options

The Docker container executes a start-notebook.sh script script by default. The start-notebook.sh script handles the NB_UID and GRANT_SUDO features documented in the next section, and then executes the jupyter notebook.

You can pass Jupyter command line options through the start-notebook.sh script when launching the container. For example, to secure the Notebook server with a password hashed using IPython.lib.passwd(), run the following:

You can sidestep the start-notebook.sh script and run your own commands in the container. See the Alternative Commands section later in this document for more information.

Docker Options

You may customize the execution of the Docker container and the Notebook server it contains with the following optional arguments.

-e PASSWORD="YOURPASS" - Configures Jupyter Notebook to require the given plain-text password. Should be combined with USE_HTTPS on untrusted networks. Note that this option is not as secure as passing a pre-hashed password on the command line as shown above.

-e USE_HTTPS=yes - Configures Jupyter Notebook to accept encrypted HTTPS connections. If a pem file containing a SSL certificate and key is not provided (see below), the container will generate a self-signed certificate for you.

-e NB_UID=1000 - Specify the uid of the jovyan user. Useful to mount host volumes with specific file ownership. For this option to take effect, you must run the container with --user root. (The start-notebook.sh script will su jovyan after adjusting the user id.)

-e GRANT_SUDO=yes - Gives the jovyan user passwordless sudo capability. Useful for installing OS packages. For this option to take effect, you must run the container with --user root. (The start-notebook.sh script will su jovyan after adding jovyan to sudoers.) You should only enable sudo if you trust the user or if the container is running on an isolated host.

-v /some/host/folder/for/work:/home/jovyan/work - Host mounts the default working directory on the host to preserve work even when the container is destroyed and recreated (e.g., during an upgrade).

-v /some/host/folder/for/server.pem:/home/jovyan/.local/share/jupyter/notebook.pem - Mounts a SSL certificate plus key for USE_HTTPS. Useful if you have a real certificate for the domain under which you are running the Notebook server.

SSL Certificates

The notebook server configuration in this Docker image expects the notebook.pem file mentioned above to contain a base64 encoded SSL key and at least one base64 encoded SSL certificate. The file may contain additional certificates (e.g., intermediate and root certificates).

If you have your key and certificate(s) as separate files, you must concatenate them together into the single expected PEM file. Alternatively, you can build your own configuration and Docker image in which you pass the key and certificate separately.

Conda Environments

The default Python 3.x Conda environment resides in /opt/conda.The commands jupyter, ipython, python, pip, easy_install, and conda (among others) are available in both environments. For convenience, you can install packages into either environment regardless of what environment is currently active using commands like the following:

Alternative Commands

start-singleuser.sh

JupyterHub requires a single-user instance of the Jupyter Notebook server per user. To use this stack with JupyterHub and DockerSpawner, you must specify the container image name and override the default container run command in your jupyterhub_config.py:

start.sh

The start.sh script supports the same features as the default start-notebook.sh script (e.g., GRANT_SUDO), but allows you to specify an arbitrary command to execute. For example, to run the text-based ipython console in a container, do the following:

docker run -it --rm jupyter/scipy-notebook start.sh ipython

This script is particularly useful when you derive a new Dockerfile from this image and install additional Jupyter applications with subcommands like jupyter console, jupyter kernelgateway, and jupyter lab.

Others

You can bypass the provided scripts and specify your an arbitrary start command. If you do, keep in mind that certain features documented above will not function (e.g., GRANT_SUDO).